Travel Shoes - The Comfy Trail - What I wear when I travel

Kilkee Bay, Co. Clare, Ireland.

My wife is from the beautiful West Coast of Ireland, specifically County Clare. Last month we travelled along with our 16 month old boy, Ben, from my boyhood home town of Liverpool England to her home town of Kilmihil.

It's a beautiful part of the world as evidenced by this photograph taken of Kilkee Bay.

We drove from Liverpool to Holyhead (Caergybi) in Wales and took a ferry across the Irish Sea (Muir Éireann ) to Dublin Port (Calafort Átha Cliath).

From English to Welsh to Irish in just a few hours, young Ben had his hands full keeping track of all the languages. Currently Ben sounds as if he is speaking Welsh more than any other language with plenty of hard consonant clashes rather than mellifluous vowel sounds. This combined with lots of pointing…”glsash glash glosh tsshlallsdh” and he wouldn’t sound too out of place in a Welsh pub on a Friday night.

For Ben, dog is DA! (which coincidentally is the phonetic Irish spelling) and ball is BA! (which luckily is the phonetic Scottish spelling) – so he’s definitely a polyglot, if only of the Celtic languages so far.

While walking around the ferry chasing after him I had a good opportunity to see what everyone was wearing on their feet. Ben was a good decoy and I could get close enough to have a good look. Sneakers, running shoes, hiking boots, oblique toed mules, motorcycle boots...there was seemingly no end to variety but there was one common theme; all of them looked well-worn and much loved.

Of course we might expect that because when we travel we cast of the social conventions of “what goes with what” for fashion purposes and aim squarely for what is our most comfortable pair of shoes. Our feet swell on airplanes and we may be walking and carrying heavy bags, our feet may get jammed under the seat in front, trod upon, scuffed up, so what we look for is something supportive, stable, comfortable, roomy, pre-loved and trusted.

I feel however that this is what we should be wearing on our feet on almost all occasions. Sure, there is the occasional wedding or Sunday Best requirements but for most other occasions, comfort and support should be paramount. The problem there of course is finding comfortable and supportive shoes that match our outfit for every occasion. Not as big a problem for me as it is for my wife, but it does pose a problem for the more formal occasions or even casual evenings out.

So, what to do?

My favorite pair of travel shoes are an old pair of TEVAs adventure sneakers. Even though these are a comfortable pair of shoes out of the box I still augment them with our Pedors 3P inserts to add some extra comfort and support. In my Clarks shoes which I wear if we go out to dinner or similar I use our Genext Active Orthtoics and for my Cole Haan shoes (now we are talking super special times!) I enjoy our Genext Dress orthotics. The Dress orthotics are so wonderful looking a feel so great underfoot that it really makes the whole occasion more enjoyable…and comfortable.

So, the next time you slip on something less comfortable, think for a moment if those shoes could be made more comfortable and supportive by using an insert or orthotic.

My advice is:

For casual deep shoes (runners, sneakers, walking shoes): Use the Pedors 3P inserts.

For semi-formal shoes and formal shoes use the Genext Active and Dress Orthotics respectively depending on the available depth of the shoe. If the shoe is deep enough, use the Genext and for low profile shoes you will need the Dress Orthotics.

Safe travels,

John